I'll Tell You In The Morning, Hawkeye
by Louiseifer
Summary: It is the mid 1980s, and Hawkeye tries to justify some of her father's actions in a brutally honest letter to to Erin Hunnicut. Now finished. Involves slash and character death.
1. Prologue

I'll Tell You In The Morning, Hawkeye

Summary: It is the mid 1980s, and Hawkeye tries to justify some of her father's actions in a brutally frank letter toto Erin Hunnicut. This is a BJ/Hawkeye centric fic, with some mentions of BJ/Trapper.

Rating: prologue PG-13, subsequent chapters may range as high as R but no higher. Some may also be milder.

Disclaimer: No profit is being made, and no rights are being claimed. Except for the right to remain silent.

* * *

_Prologue_

_From the records of Dr S. Freedman, dated September 7th 1960, 3.45 p.m._

_As told by Dr B.F. Pierce_

'It shouldn't have happened like that. That wasn't how it was supposed to go. I'd put so much thought into it, and I knew how it ended. How it was supposed to end. How I'd visualised it, time and time again.

I know it was wrong, but people are made of different layers. Like those things you get … what are they called? Russian dolls. On the outside, that's what people see. What do you shrinks call it? The ego. The mediation between the other bits. The super-ego and the … whatever. Id. Thank you. Those are two of the dolls, the little ones inside the big one, and they all mesh together to make who you are. Well one of my inner dolls wanted to go to Missouri and get the whole thing over with. Of course I missed the guy, and of course I was upset. As upset as any of you. But deep within me was that other little doll that wanted BJ so badly I could think of little else but him the entire time. You must know how it feels. You try so hard not to think of something that you end up thinking about it more and more and you can't break the cycle by just not thinking because the thoughts are subtle, insidious, and get in whether you try not thinking about them, or you just try not thinking, or even if you stand there and hit your head against the wall for a straight hour …

I thought about him through the entire service. I mean, of course I tried to think of Sherman, but … I'm not one of the good guys, Sidney. I'm not. I'm selfish, I'm jealous, and I'm so damned arrogant I actually though the whole thing would go my way, exactly as I planned it, as if they were both just pawns for me to move around as I pleased.

I don't think I want to talk about the funeral. You were there. You saw it. It was like every other funeral I've ever been to, because they all have one thing in common; the priest never knew the deceased. Some Methodist guy with a voice like gravel … a million middle-aged women sobbing. Of course I felt sorry for them, but I'm a surgeon. The amount of death I've seen … they couldn't comprehend. At first, the ones you know are different. And then … they just aren't. They're just more corpses, more failed attempts at resuscitation … more memories …

It was weird. If he'd died in Korea, we'd have wept for weeks. We loved him out there. But none of us had seen him for ten years. It was like an old uncle we never really knew had died, and we – me and you, BJ and Trapper – were the only ones who couldn't force the tears.

I invited Trapper, so I suppose it's my fault. But when I got that letter from Mildred, there was nothing else I could do. _'Bring all his old army friends you can find', _she wrote, but the only person I was still in regular contact with was BJ. We tracked down Klinger, but there was no way he could make it. Margaret has made herself scarce, I dunno. Changed her name or something. Probably married, moved away. Maybe she's gone back to the army again. I could never tell what she'd do next.

Radar … Poor guy. Must be nearly thirty by now, but he cried on the phone. Couldn't make it, though. Not enough hands to tend the farm. He's married, did I tell you? Deserves every ounce of happiness. Ah … I only wish I had happier news to deliver to him.

Charles was tied up, no surprise there. Frank … Well I made the effort and found him, but he hung up as soon as he realised who he was talking to. Thought it was some kind of prank. Maybe it was. And that only left Mulcahy and yourself. Couldn't turn up with three people and say 'sorry, lady, these are all his pals'. So I hunted down Trapper, and he came along. For me, he said. '_For you, Hawk, anything'_. I explained how much he would have liked Potter, and I told him all about BJ. Great, he said. I'll play like I knew the guy. I'll meet this BJ.

Ha.

Ah, BJ. Would that you had known. But he did, didn't he? He always did. He knew exactly what I felt for him in Korea, because it was what he felt for Peg. He read it in my face every day. I remember when we had that chat, the first time, and I told you about the male nurse in med school, and it took you hours but finally you got me to say it out loud. I loved BJ. I did. I guess I still do, in a way, but he betrayed me like he betrayed Peg.

People … change. It's an obvious thing to say, but when you see it first hand, in people you thought you knew … It frightens me. BJ would never betray his wife. Not the BJ I knew. But when I think about it, it's obvious. He hadn't been married long, they had a baby, and he had been torn violently away from them. Marriages fall apart. More so now than ever. Even those that seem the most stable, the most loving …

It was one of the first things he told me, and I hated myself for it but it gave me hope. I remember it clearly. On the train between a place I can't remember and a place that doesn't matter, he told me all about his 'experience'. That's what he called it. He slept with some guy and it changed him, and he left Peg and moved away for a while before going back and trying to make it work with Erin. The whole thing seemed to make him proud, like I should have applauded him for doing something unexpected. Bastard.

I laid it on with a trowel. There's no way he could have missed it. I touched him at every given opportunity, flirted outrageously, and finally, in some shitty subway near the hotel, he kissed me. Not many people know what it's like to get the thing you want after a decade of wanting it, but I did right then. I knew. And it was fantastic.

But then we had to go and meet Trapper. You know the arrangements. We'd booked three rooms. BJ and I arrived a day earlier, then we met Trapper, then we had a clear day to prepare for the service. BJ and I spent the best part of twenty hours alone. I should have fucked him right there in that subway.

But Trapper was waiting. Good old Trapper, with his muscles and his curly hair and his cheeky grin. I don't know why it never occurred to me to love Trapper, but it didn't. I was waiting for BJ the whole time.

I don't know what else you want me to say, Sidney. I'm … furious. Jealous. Ha! _Passionately_ jealous. I'm so green I sometimes wonder if the army doesn't still own me. I hate Trapper for it, even though it wasn't his fault. And I still love BJ, even though it was his. I'd take him now, if he walked in and offered. I … guess I'm addicted to him. You're married. Imagine walking in on your wife with another man. That was how I felt. Livid.

So yeah. That's why I went a bit nuts the other day. That's why they've got every head doctor in America peering at me over the tops of their spectacles, but I'm not going to tell them any of this, and neither will you. The anger and the grief and the lust got the better of me. That's all there is to it. I'm not ill, I don't need help. I need BJ. I need him to tell me Trapper means nothing to him. I need Trapper to stop ringing me and apologising.

I suppose you're right. I do need some sleep. A lot of sleep. I could sleep for America in the Olympic games. Maybe I'll volunteer …

Hey, Sidney? Are you recording this? That's a bad habit you've got there … let me see that thing. How'd you stop it? Okay –'

_Interview ends, 4.01 p.m._


	2. Chapter One

I'll Tell You In The Morning, Hawkeye

_Chapter One_

I don't remember seeing him pull up in the driveway, and I don't remember answering the door. I have no idea what time of day it was – or even if it was the weekend or after weekday office hours. But what I do remember vividly was the expression on his face when he dropped the tape reel on my kitchen table. I stared at the sticker on the case, which read then exactly the same as it reads now:

"_From the records of Dr S. Freedman, September 7th 1960, 3.45 p.m._ _As told by Dr B.F. Pierce."_

"I'm sorry, Hawkeye," he said quietly. "Sidney was worried about you. We all are…"

I couldn't take my eyes off that tape, no matter how much I wanted to look at BJ's face again. I knew that expression would still be there. That pity. That guilt. Part of me wanted to shove him back out the door, throw his tape after him, and lock myself in the cellar until the rest of the world went away and I could carry on living my life in peace, away from BJ, away from Trapper, and away from back-stabbing psychiatrists. But most of me wanted him to touch me. Nothing much. Maybe he could tap my arm, or stroke my cheek. Wrapping me in his arms and kissing the life out of me wouldn't have been entirely inappropriate either. But he didn't touch me, and he didn't speak again. He was waiting for me to yell at him.

"We all," I repeated quietly, without shifting my gaze.

"Well, mostly me and Mulcahy. He's … uh, actually he's still in the car."

Now I looked up and glanced out of the window. The small, mild-mannered priest was actually not in the car, but leaning against it, glancing about at his surroundings. I felt a little better knowing he was there. I wondered where on earth Sidney was…

"…And Trapper?"

BJ winced. "He had to go back to work. Told me to say goodbye."

"Ha!" I said, then paused for thought. "Trapper's gone back to Boston?"

"That's what I said."

"And you came out to Maine to see me?"

BJ offered the slightest glimmer of a smile. "You've not completely lost touch with reality, then."

After that I invited the padre in, and we sat around the kitchen table feeling awkward. Once or twice Mulcahy tried to offer some words of advice.

"You know … Leviticus was speaking somewhat out of context on a number of issues …"

"Save it, Father," I muttered.

"And if you read between the lines of 2 Samuel-"

"Padre," said BJ softly. His tone was guarded and wary, and I knew he was still waiting for me to flip. He was right; I was angry at him. Furious. But I was more angry with the one person who deserved a chewing-out, and that was myself. When I first walked into that hotel room, saw _my_ BJ asleep soundly next to Trapper, I blew a fuse. A decade of frustrations took the excuse to spill over, and my jealousy got mixed up with a whole lot of other stuff as I tried to blame it all on them. Looking back, I can see I acted like a child denied candy until after supper. Only, back then, I didn't realise there was going to be a supper. I couldn't see those nasty great sprouts or the chewable gravy or the rocks pretending to be potatoes looming on the metaphorical horizon.

And I certainly had no idea how good the candy was going to be when I finally got my hands on it. And, really, that's what this is all about. You're a big girl now, Erin. I don't need to explain to you why your daddy couldn't stay with your mummy any more. You were still growing up in the 70s, so you should be fully clued in with that malarkey, and besides, I don't want to patronise you with this letter. I want to explain what was going on in our heads back then. I want you to know something of your father as the person he was rather than the parent he tried so hard to be. And I want you to stand out amongst other young people as someone who can, maybe, understand the kind of messed-up lives people live once they've tasted war.

Besides, it's about time I answered some of those questions you used to ask your dad and me. He didn't think many of the answers were appropriate. I don't know much about appropriateness. All I know is, a kid asked me a bunch of stuff a couple of decades ago and I can't live with myself until I tell her a few truths. I'm not kidding around here, and I'm not going to skimp on the details. You're old enough to handle the things I want to describe.

So where to start? Or, more accurately, how to continue? That first day was slow and difficult. Mulcahy – bless his wrinkled old soul – got well and truly in our way. You'd like him, Erin. He and your dad were as close to selfless human beings as I've ever met. If he wasn't a priest, he'd have been a doctor too, no doubt. He couldn't stand there and watch other people suffer … so when I was suffering, he wasn't going anywhere fast. BJ was a fool, didn't know how to say the myriad things he wanted to say, and certainly didn't know how to say them in front of a priest – and that, let me tell you, was your mother's fault. Trust Peg to ruin a perfectly good atheist with morals and respect for the clergy.

But I promised I'd never say a word against Peg. It was difficult in the end, but I've managed it, and your dad knew I managed it.

Back to BJ and his morals. He kept apologising to me in a number of creative ways. That was one of his many talents, and he made full use of it so long as Mulcahy was in the room. As soon as the priest made his excuses and retired to the guest room I'd prepared for him, BJ opened up. A lot.

As honest as he was, BJ tended to be conservative with his opinions. He didn't throw his passions around like I do. I'll get angry with anything, hit anyone, chase any ambition, romance, notion, ideal … you name it. But BJ was quiet, thoughtful and, when he finally got round to having his say on a matter, he made sure it was said properly and stayed said.

The evening was slow in coming, I seem to recall. I had a large tree outside the kitchen window, but it didn't block the light enough to dim the room until very late. BJ seemed to like it, but I hated it. Hated that tree like I've hated many people, but while I can give a man a good seeing to with my metaphorical chainsaw of wit, I couldn't bring myself to get rid of that tree for a long time. In autumn, I got apples off it in some kind of peace-offering, so it lived another twenty five years. BJ used to sit under it in summer and work, or whatever it was he did. I never asked. He'd sit in the garden until it got too dark to see the books he was reading or the paper he was writing on, and sometimes he'd even go out in the rain with the big parasol we never took to the beach like we said we would. I think he did it because I hated that tree so much, and he figured I'd leave him alone for a couple of hours a day if he sat by it. Peg actually laughed when I told her about that. Said it was because I didn't give him his own study. BJ always needed his space, but once he was gone, the tree had to go too. It eventually got too painful to see it sitting out there in the rain on its own without the parasol and inevitable empty beer can … without BJ.

It did rain that night, I think. Or maybe that's just my memory playing tricks. I doubt I would have noticed if a comet plummeted from the sky and destroyed half the house that night, never mind a spot of rain. That was the night I really heard what I had wanted to hear since I met him.

BJ started off with the words I'd wanted to hear for at least a week: "I don't feel anything for Trapper. I hardly know him. I have no idea what made me sleep with him, Hawk, honest. Except perhaps that I hardly know him." He paused to assemble his thoughts, and finally admitted, "you'd already got me hot under the collar, but you were too important. It's stunning how sex can ruin a perfectly good friendship. Trapper, I didn't know, so I figured it wouldn't do any harm."

"You were wrong," I said, needlessly.

"Only because you happened to walk in."

"Oh, so it's my fault?"

BJ, as ever, tried to calm me down. For the first time that day he touched me. Reached out and gripped my hand in a brief, reassuring grasp. "This is all my fault. All of it. I should have talked to you, and I intended to. I just … slept with Trapper first. It shouldn't have happened."

I shook my head. "I'm not sure I'm playing with a full deck of cards here, Beej. My head hurts, and I don't understand. You've always known how I felt about you."

"No, Hawk, I've merely suspected. I didn't _know_ anything until Sidney gave me that tape."

"Nothing occurred to you when we had our tongues down each other's throats?" I said.

He shrugged. "We were both a little giddy. A couple of drinks, a long journey …"

"So you didn't mean it."

"That's not what I said."

"So you _did_ mean it?"

"…" said BJ. He stared out of the window at that damned tree, already captivated by the curious twists of its old branches. I shut my eyes, screwed them as tight shut as I could against the mounting exhaustion. I wanted nothing more than for BJ to give me some opening, some hint that it was time to forgive him everything and invite him into my arms.

Cheesy, isn't it? I said I'd be honest, and I am. I was thinking nothing of shagging him for once, and it's so significant a moment in our relationship it needs mentioning. I wanted to hold him, nothing more. I just wanted to know he belonged to me as I'd always belonged to him. I don't think there ever was a moment before or since that I managed to look at him without some degree of lust, but that one time I managed it. I was tired, it's true, but I still did it and I hold it up as proof that I have some level of depth to my personality. The only time I mentioned the significance of this to BJ he laughed, so we can't really say the same of him.

But he didn't say anything, and he didn't move towards me or touch me or anything. He rubbed his eyes and glanced at the door. He wanted out of that conversation, but I wasn't going to let him escape so easily.

He made a feeble excuse and got up to go to bed. I stood up and tried to bar his way to the door, but built of stuff far more solid than me, so I knew I couldn't really stop him going anywhere.

"Beej, one last question," I said.

"What is it?"

"Do you love me?"

He rubbed at his bleary eyes again and finally offered me a genuine smile. "I'll tell you in the morning, Hawkeye."

_To be continued...?_


	3. Chapter Two

I'll give you some advice, Erin. I'm sure I've given you plenty of advice over the years, but there's always space for more. This is it: never invite a priest into you home. They can't step over the threshold unless you invite them, so if you value your stack of washing up by the sink, your unpleasant hairs in the bathroom, your clothes all over the place, do not ever invite a member of the clergy in.

If cleanliness really is next to godliness, Mulcahy was sitting on God's right-hand side when I came stumbling down to breakfast. He had tidied everything in a kind of nervous hyperactivity common amongst young clergymen and businesswomen. The kitchen shone like it hadn't since I bought the place, which was disturbing enough in itself, but that was nothing compared to the orderliness I discovered when I opened a cupboard at random.

"I'm sorry Hawkeye," said Mulcahy quietly. "I know you like your … chaos. I was just a bit embarrassed about staying in your home without pulling my weight…"

So that's priests. They tidy compulsively. Avoid.

BJ was sound asleep on the sofa, but not for long because I wanted my answer. The sofa and the answer to my question are as inextricably involved as Kurtz and Marlow, because it's where your father spent his final days, nearly twenty years later. It was a large, squashy, brown suede affair, and BJ adopted it as his own, exiling me to the matching armchair. I know at least twice he started rows simply so he had an excuse to sleep on his blessed sofa rather than with me. But I digress.

He didn't answer. Wouldn't tell me. I pestered him the entire day, all the way to the station with the padre and all the way round the grocery store, and all the way home again.

"Beej, come on. Just say it."

"Say what?"

"Tell me you love me."

"And what if I don't?"

"Then tell me that!"

"Hmm … I'll tell you later."

It's attention-seeking. He's always done it. That's a point; did he ever tell you what the 'BJ' stands for? Because he never, ever told me.

That first day together … I won't say it was easy. Shell shock … battle fatigue, post-traumatic stress disorder … whatever you call it, it catches up with you eventually. Every man has his breaking point, and in finding each other we'd both met ours. I've enclosed that old tape. When I walked in on BJ with Trapper, something in me snapped … Perhaps it was because Trapper always managed to get his hands on everything I wanted. Every nurse back in the early days, that discharge two years before me … BJ. I'd chased and yearned and pined for him for ten years, and all Trapper had to do was grin that soppy great grin of his, flex his muscles, and BJ fell for him. Which of course he didn't. But you don't hang around to glean all the details when something like that happens.

BJ was lost, and I think he had been for years. There's nothing good about war. It just ruins and destroys and corrupts, and none of us can predict it or cope with it. BJ could see his future when he left his residency. He had you and Peg. He'd work and bring you up and love his wife. And then war into his life. He was wrenched away from you, shown a world in which nothing is as simple as he expected. He was forced to wade through pools of blood to salvage tiny shimmering facets of life from a raging sea of chaos and murder. And he met me. No one recovers from any of those things.

We didn't talk much back then, except at night, under the covers. That was the only place it was safe. Together, in the dark, we could admit to the things that weren't allowed to exist in broad daylight. We could talk about the black places of the soul, the horrors we had seen, the passions we felt for each other – which, in those days, were horrors to every decent god-fearing American. But that day we talked about you. Not us. BJ wouldn't directly tell me he loved me, but he said it in other ways. We talked about moving to California together to be closer to you, and he told me it was almost your birthday so we discussed joint gifts.

When we got home, he broke a little bit more. It was the only time I've ever seen him genuinely cry. He was plagued by guilt, you must know that. He tried to put it into words, but for some things, words are no more substantial or meaningful than wisps of smoke. It hurt him to be away from you, but the years between Korea and Maine were, for him, like limbo. Purgatory. The ordinariness of his work, the thought that he would never again feel that thrill – and it is a thrill, Erin – of adrenaline as the first hum of chopper blades drifts into hearing range. Tonsillectomies just aren't quite the life-or-death stuff we had grown used to.

And then … he simply didn't love your mother any more. Couldn't live his life with someone who had not seen the things he had, felt the way he had. It's selfish. I know it is, because I felt exactly the same. I can't say whether or not latent homosexuality had anything to do with it, or even if there was such a thing in BJ. I certainly never caught him looking at other men. I like to think I was some big exception to an unwritten rule. It keeps my ego happy.

If you could understand his pain, you might be able to forgive him for leaving. There was nothing else he could do.

Of course, he tried to keep in touch with you. You know he did. It was that second night he stayed with me that he picked up the phone and rang your mother. I don't know how long he had spent away from you, but the call lasted a millennium. I sat on the floor outside my study, back resting against the door, listening to BJ's side of the conversation.

"Peg … Honey it's me. Don't raise your voice … where's Erin? Good. No, don't fetch her. We need to talk…"

He told her everything. How he couldn't bare to stay in California, how the memories plagued him, how he no longer loved her.

"I'm staying with Hawkeye … Yes, that Hawkeye. Yes, hon. It … I guess it is like that, yeah. I need to be round him … Peg, don't ask me that. You know I can't answer that…"

The short version is this: your mother came out to Maine the next day. Dropped you off at an aunt's or something and just flew out. I was coming home from work when the car she had hired pulled into the driveway. We both froze. She sat there, I stood, and we stared at each other, and then, very slowly, she got out of the car.

"So you're Hawkeye Pierce?" she asked.

I tried for a smile, but I probably failed. "And you must be Peg."

"Margaret to you."

I had heard her voice once before, on a recording, but she sounded nothing like I remembered. She didn't look like any of your dad's photos either. Her face was grave, her hair severely tied back, and small lines were forming at the corners of her eyes and lips. Her voice was flat, like someone had let all the air out of it. She glanced towards the house.

"Is BJ in?"

We went indoors to find out, and there he was, just sitting at the kitchen table and staring out of the window. He scarcely looked up as we came in.

This conversation lasted even longer than the previous night's phone call, but at least I could hear both ends. BJ had stayed well and truly on the couch both nights he had spent in my house, and we hadn't shared so much as a handshake, but by the way he was speaking, I found myself wishing Peg would hurry up and leave so we could do all the things she must have left thinking we had done already. He told her he was leaving her for me, that she mustn't judge us but nor should she tell anyone. He wanted a divorce, and so did she. The most memorable moment was when BJ offered her anything in the settlement – money, house, car – so long as she agreed to allow him access to you. Like a striking snake she slapped him, and it nearly spun him off his chair.

"You think I want those things? And you think I want my daughter growing up not knowing what happened to her father? You keep your rotten money, and in return you can explain to Erin why her father is now living with a man!"

BJ suggested we take you every summer, and I thought Peg was going to hit him again. Her daughter alone with deviants? Never. But she wasn't coming out to Maine, and we weren't shifting to California, so it was finally agreed that you _both_ would come for a holiday in Crabapple Cove in summer, and Peg would see how it went.

I offered her the spare room for the night, but she refused and got a room at the motel at the edge of town. This left BJ and I alone, and that was the night my room became our room. The suitcases full of his stuff which Peg had bright with her were unpacked in the guest room, but BJ never slept in it. On occasions we rowed, and he slept on the couch despite a full-sized bed sitting unused in that room. He always claimed guest room beds were stuffed with wood chippings and the sheets made of cold, thin paper, and having slept in a number myself, I'd say he was about right.

But that night … I'll never forget it. BJ was angry, lost, guilt-ridden, miserable, and maybe a little crazy … I felt all of those things diffuse out from him a little as we made love. None of them ever completely left, but maybe I wouldn't have loved him so much if he wasn't capable of those emotions.

Afterwards I worried he would change. Lose interest. Become someone else entirely. So I asked him if he loved me, and he dispelled my fears by refusing to answer, and I began to realise it was his way of making sure we always had something. I would always want to know the answer, and he would always withhold it. There would always be something left unsaid between us, so that if it ever became the last thing left, we could cling to it like a kite string in a gale.

"I'll tell you in the morning, Hawkeye."


	4. Chapter Three

And then there were the happy times, such as they were. BJ found a job at a local hospital, pretended to the world in general that he was my cousin renting the guest room, and made arrangements for you and Peg to stay with us through August. Before Korea I know I must have been happy, but I can't remember any specific moments. The war was hell, and the decade after it was purgatory, but once I had BJ in my life again, things straightened themselves out a little. Metaphorically speaking.

Life revolved around two things for us: work and play. Working apart from each other, we spent huge chunks of the day in different places, and then finally, come evening, I would lock the door of dad's practise, say g'night to the old man himself, and sprint home in time to surprise BJ – who was invariably late – with a meal or a carefully prepared drink, or just with myself. The evenings were ours. When I entertained it was strictly at weekends, and I'd usher everyone out by ten, in time for BJ and I to curl up on the sofa with the radio or a book between us, or to doze together in silence. Sometimes dad came round, and he and BJ got along so well it was unnecessary to explain to him what was going on. "A friend … renting the spare room" sufficed, and possibly wasn't even heard as dad cracked some awful joke and forced another glass of whisky on poor bemused BJ.

I'll always remember the day three days before dad died. We had him staying with us, bundled up in the spare room with a bell to ring for anything he needed, and we fed BJ's employers with excuses so that one of us could be in the house at all times. We were both sitting in with him, when suddenly he had a coughing fit that shook the entire house. When he calmed down, he declared he thought he was dying, and grabbed BJ's hand.

"Promise me something," he insisted, with no option of no for an answer. "Promise me you'll look after Hawkeye when I'm gone."

"Don't be silly, you aren't going anywhere," I insisted, but dad waved at me to shut up.

"I'm talking to Beej here, kid, so pipe down. BJ … I want you to try and love my son as much as I do. It won't be easy, but try. I know what you two have got going on here, and at first it rattled me, but when you look at each other … Well you've got something I can't stand in the way of. And you've got my blessing too."

My dad. Always full of surprises. And if he couldn't stand in the way of us, neither could the chief of medicine up at the hospital, when an aunt of mine – an elderly patient of his – got wind of our living arrangements. With perfect innocence, the old dear chatted away about a visit to our house, and gave away the secret of that damned un-slept in guest room. She had no capacity to guess what that implied, but old Dr Halliday did, and BJ found his sorry ass unemployed the very next day, after refusing to find other accommodation and declare his heterosexuality. And that, I'm sorry to say, was the end of you dad's career. A fucking waste – pardon my French – and a complete scandal on behalf of the hospital for letting go of a brilliant surgeon because of his personal life.

But nothing could keep BJ's spirits down long, because after a week of mooching around at home and bothering me at work, you and your mum arrived. I have never seen BJ laugh so much as he did that summer. At ten years old, you were still utterly devoted to your parents, but your wicked little sense of humour was shining through, and I remember thinking you had bags of energy even for a child. My garden became a playground, and you automatically made friends with other children in the street so that when I came home from work there were often eight or nine kids shinning up that horrible old tree, playing football, or lounging about on the grass.

BJ and Peg didn't speak to each other much. In fact Peg only really socialised with you, never taking her eyes off you and certainly never glancing at us when we stood or sat together. The one time she walked in on us mid-kiss, an enormous row broke out over the inappropriateness of such behaviour with a child around and the disgustingness of the whole thing in general. BJ was furious, and I was none too amused either, but we kept a lid on our anger and saved the intimacy for genuine alone-time. I guess that's what got you confused once you hit your teens.

Despite a few hitches, the first summer went fine. Peg agreed to bring you back the following year, and things progressed more or less like that until you were fifteen. That was 1966, I think, and we had the new television set on in the living room. BJ and I were at opposite ends of the couch with you in the middle, leaning on your dad. Peg, now a little more at ease with things, sat to one side. We were discussing the latest war – Vietnam – and the reasons why BJ and I had so far managed to avoid the draft board this time round.

"Well Hawkeye's too old," was BJ's smart-ass comment that sticks in my mind. "And I … well I'm a bit out of practice now. Can hardly carve a turkey any more. And I'm not exactly soldier material, especially with … the circumstances in which I lost my job."

"Daddy, how _did_ you lose you job?" you asked, radiating innocence.

Peg spoke for the first time that evening. "Just tell her. Get it over with."

BJ's explanation was clumsy. I expect you remember it better than I do. It changed your life, after all. He tried to explain it in terms of love rather than sexuality, but I think he rather missed the mark. Can you imagine living in the pig-headed fifties, and the misunderstood sixties, and having to explain to your teenage daughter that you are gay? You didn't understand. How could you? Peg and her old-fashioned ways brought you up, and an unforgiving society educated you. Homosexuals were deviants, and possibly criminals and mentally diseased. No one had tried to teach you otherwise, and nothing Peg or I could say to you would get you to go back in that room with BJ after you ran out.

And that was it for five years. We sent birthday presents and Christmas cards out to you, but heard nothing back. We rang Peg, but she fobbed us off. BJ finally flew out to California, but you wouldn't speak to him and he dragged himself home a broken man. I'm not going to say his lapse into depression wasn't your fault. It was. But perhaps a part of you didn't mean it, because in 1972 we received that letter asking us to come out to see you. And I swear we would have. I swear we would not have ignored that letter. You see, if you had answered my called I would have explained. That was the day your father fell ill.

Even taking into account my sojourn in the front lines, I have never been so terrified in my life. BJ went out to sit underneath the old apple tree and read some rubbishy book he'd been ploughing through. From what I understand, the heart attack struck in reaction to a sudden shift in air pressure as an abrupt storm front trundled across Maine. At least, that's the only explanation I've been able to find besides 'his heart was just weak', which to be honest is a fucking awful diagnosis. I found him almost an hour afterwards, and thank whatever deity was watching that he was still breathing. The ambulance took us off to the same hospital which had fired him years earlier, and a team of nurses set about stabilising him, medicating him, and generally trying to figure out what went wrong. Despite my declarations of doctorhood, they kept me well and truly on the sidelines, all except for a nurse I used to be very well acquainted with.

I begged her to let me examine him, treat him, care for him, but that much she could not grant. She did allow me to set up camp in the ward, talk to BJ all the time he was unconscious, and promised to keep me up to date.

"He's going to be okay?" I asked, after trying and failing once more to muscle in on the resident doctors' conversation, steal their charts, and generally find out what was going on. She glanced at the chart, and grimaced.

"You want me to be nice, or honest?"

"Honest. Just tell me. Will he make it through the night?"

She shook her head very slightly. "I'll tell you in the morning, Hawkeye."

_To be continued…?_


	5. Chapter Four

Your dad had a box of stuff he wanted to give to you. Just old junk he kept. I think his wedding band is in there, along with his captain's bars, a stethoscope nicked from the 4077, a couple of trinkets inherited from your grandparents, and the watch I gave him one Christmas. I can remember when he took the damn thing off and told me to 'put it with Erin's stuff'. 'Don't be stupid,' I said. 'You won't be able to tell the time'. And I pointed out that there was no clock on the wall of our room. 'Doesn't matter,' he said. 'I'm a doctor. I know how long I've got left.'

I'm not sending you that box because if you want it you can damn well come out here and get it. I'm not sending things like that through the post. It'd kill me if it got lost.

There's some other stuff too. He had a will, of course. There's money, if you want it, because I certainly don't. Clothes I couldn't get rid of, stacks of books, a million cruddy things Beej bought on the spur of the moment – records, picture frames, ornaments, the sort of things I wouldn't glance twice at in a shop but can't take my eyes off because they belonged to him – and there's all his correspondence. I'll glean out any letters between me and him, if you don't mind, but you can have all the letters he kept from Peg while in Korea, his letters from colleagues and friends, and there's even his draft notice. He kept it because, he said, 'Without it, I would never have found you, Hawk', which is just about the least romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.

I'm not sure what else there is left to say between us, Erin. How many times can I say I loved BJ before you will forgive me for talking him from you? How many times do you want me to apologise? And why should I, when it was I who stayed with him and you who ran away?

I almost forgot. We need to discuss one last thing, and for the life of me I can't figure it out for myself. Why didn't you come to the funeral?

It was a simple thing. By the time your father died we were running low on friends and relatives, because they'd died too, or heard about our unorthodox relationship, or moved too far away. A few people from Korea came. Radar, the dear sweet kid, and his wife stayed with me for a week. Margaret made it this time, and Mulcahy held the service. Having decided, after twenty years, that I could forgive the guy, I spent a long time hunting for Trapper, but I don't know what became of him. There's no record of his death in Boston, which I assume means he's still around someplace, but I could find no record of him leaving either. Watch out for guys like Trapper. They sail into your life, fuck it up, and saunter out again leaving no trace for you to follow or clue when they'll be back, and the worst bit is you miss them like hell.

It was … how to describe a funeral? Satisfactory, I suppose. When the priest is one of the mourners you're always going to be in for some stalling, but the old guy did his best. Besides Radar, BJ was the youngest of us. It was unfair, Erin. So painfully, wrongly, agonisingly unfair. It's that feeling you get when you know life has duped you, taken from out of your grasping fingertips the one thing you've strived for, cried for, bled for all your life. I'm a doctor. It shouldn't get to me like this, the … unfairness of it all. Not after all I've seen. And when I've seen kids with bits blown off they didn't know they had, and blood-soaked corpses lying in ditches in South Korean villages, and the insides of – I don't know – a hundred thousand million kids who didn't make it …why is it that the sight that drove the wind from me, doubled me over and made me choke on my own grief was the sight of BJ so peaceful in our own bed?

His heart stopped while he was asleep. That's how some people dream of going. Quietly, painlessly, and with dignity. But the peace, the painlessness, and the dignity were all his; I lost all of mine in that instant. To hear some other doctor's voice pronounce the death of your loved on is a humbling thing. It's also devastating. Completely life-wreaking. Mind-numbing. No amount of ink stretched across endless sheets of paper can describe it. You should have been there when he died, and you should have been at the funeral.

Maybe what I'm trying to say is, I shouldn't have been alone in that house with BJ ebbing away and that young doctor making an ass of himself with his optimism and his stubbornness.

"Sir, your friend's going to be just fine. I'm only here to keep an eye on him and make sure he's got everything he needs."

"What kind of moron do you take me for, kiddo? I was a doctor when you were still a glint in the milkman's eye, so don't come in here patronising me with your stories. You think I reckon you fellows still make house calls, and you wouldn't be out here if it wasn't the end of the line? I've looked into the eyes of a thousand dying men, and you're treating me like a child. Bugger me if the ink isn't still wet on your diploma…"

I think I hazed that kid to the brink, because when he left he had tears in his eyes. The little gimp. There's a bizarre, nameless emotion you get mostly at funerals, when you realise that feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach – grief – is shared by a dozen or a hundred other people. It isn't your grief. It's Our grief with a capital O, and you begin to think that lessens the importance of your feeling it, and that – _that_ – is where the worst pain comes from. I wanted to hit that doctor for daring to feel the things I felt, but mostly I wanted to curl up and sob my heart out.

I'd have shared that feeling with you, Erin. You're the only one left who knew him before me. I'd count Radar too, but he's got his own family. The last of my family, and the last of your family, died with BJ. I guess that sort of makes you all I've got left. That's why I'm writing to you, really. Ah, who am I kidding? There are a dozen reasons, each as genuine as the last. You should visit the grave. You should collect this box of things. We should clear the air before I snuff it too. I should make you … no … I should _invite _you to understand.

Then there were your father's last words. He kept asking when you were coming out. You see, I told him you weren't ignoring me, you were just busy. "When's Erin coming, Hawk?" he'd ask every evening. And every evening I replied, "I'll tell you in the morning."

But I think the biggest reason is simply this: I'm alone. I'm alone and old and ill in a town that shuns me and drives me insane. And I've never been this honest with anyone, even BJ.

Be it on your head now, Erin …

Hawkeye

x


End file.
